@dramatistsguild @duanekelly

If the recent launch of three new theatre companies by Dramatists Guild members does not represent a trend, it is at least a confluence deserving attention.

Last year I reported on The Grief Dialogues (www.griefdialogues.com), a nonprofit organization started by DG member Elizabeth Coplan. Its mission is to produce plays and related events based around the theme of grief for the death of loved ones.

Last fall two other enterprises took root in Seattle. Guild members Margaret O’Donnell and Kate Danley launched Seattle Playwrights Salon (www.seattleplaywrightssalon.com), secured an ongoing venue, and mounted two plays—Undocumented, written by O’Donnell, and Building Madness by Danley.

As to the impetus behind Seattle Playwrights Salon, the two founders were finding Seattle’s theatre scene to be insular, with most of the reading and the rare production opportunities going to young people or already famous playwrights. Readings could be expensive (classes with one reading at the end costing as much as $1,200), or exclusive, as in restricted to a few anointed playwrights. Danley and O’Donnell, armed with a bootstrap mentality, decided to take matters into their own hands and become their own champions. Danley went off to study at the Commercial Theater Institute in New York to learn the ins and outs of producing while O’Donnell began networking with other area playwrights to learn what needs were not being met. On a serendipitous day in September they connected with the owners of The Conservatory Seattle, a coffee shop art house in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood. The owners had a dream of their café being a creative home to artists of the spoken word. Thus began The Seattle Playwrights Salon, featuring a monthly play reading series and the occasional full production, with a mission to feature the deserving work of unheralded local playwrights. Their next two productions, of plays by other writers, are scheduled for early 2017.

Concurrent with O’Donnell and Danley’s venture, Guild member John C. Davenport was joining forces with another Seattle playwright to launch Red Rover Theatre Company. In October they mounted their first full production, Davenport’s play Red Rover (which also gave the nascent company its name). They presented six performances over a two-week period and were delighted when their last performance sold out. Davenport and his partner were enthused about their inaugural production and immediately began laying plans for their next full production in the spring of this year. Davenport says that what motivated him to start this company was “the endless frustration of sending out plays and getting rejected or never hearing any response at all.”

It just so happened that the fall meeting for Dramatists Guild members in the Seattle area featured a panel discussion with the managers of four small stage venues that are suitable for playwrights interested in self-producing. The panelists were Caitlin McCown of West of Lenin Theatre, Greg Carter of 12th Avenue Arts, Doug Staley of Theater Schmeater, and David Gassner of 18th and Union Arts Space. While all four managers are receptive to self-producing writers, they also cautioned that producing is a complicated skill set distinct from scriptwriting. As one panelist put it, “The positive energy of creative art doesn’t automatically translate into good organizational process. Artists need to respect the need for focused administrators.” Panelist Greg Carter added that a successful production must start with a strong script: “What successful plays have in common is brilliant, challenging writing about the meaning of life on earth. Any play that can ask those questions will work anywhere. Always has, always will.”

dkelly@dramatistsguild.com

Margaret O’Donnell (left) and Kate Danley

@dramatistsguild @suzemallen

As we all know, there is much to be said for being in the right place at the right time. For some of us, finding a niche and filling it can change the course of your career and your life. Patricia Milton, resident playwright with Central Works in Berkeley, California, knows this firsthand. She’s been writing plays since she was ten years old and especially loved writing TV scripts and having the neighborhood kids act them out. “It was wild!” Patricia says with a hearty laugh.

A play Patricia wrote in high school won an award and helped her land a scholarship to San Francisco State where she started out as a theatre major but ended up with a liberal arts degree. (Very long story.) Somewhere along the line she lost confidence in her writing and put down her pen for the next twenty years. And then in the 90’s when personal essays were all the rage, she wrote a few, and to her surprise, they were published. Confidence reinstated! And here’s where it gets really interesting. In 2001, a playwright who happens to work in her company, Andrew Black, approaches her about collaborating on a play. Patricia says, “Sure!” and they fly to Bali, yes, Bali, and write a play. In nine years they wound up writing three plays and a musical together, which were basically genre comedies with gay protagonists. And here is where the “find the niche and fill it” comes in…

“Writing together was a lot of fun. Andy and I have a similar artistic vision when it comes to comedy. We worked in the same room like Kaufman and Hart and we were reimagining different genres from a gay perspective. And we were very successful because at the time gay-oriented theatres were eager for new material that wasn’t necessarily about coming out or getting married, and we provided them plays with a very different focus. With our first play, we won the national Dramarama competition through Playwrights Center of San Francisco and got produced by Fritz Blitz in San Diego. As you can imagine, we were very encouraged by this.”

In 2010, Patricia and Andy’s gay murder mystery, It’s Murder, Mary!, was commissioned by New Conservatory Theatre.

“We were shocked and delighted that NCTC Artistic Director Ed Decker had always wanted to do a gay murder mystery and we just happened to be working on one!”

In nine years they only completed four projects because they could only write together on weekends. Each of them were working on their own stuff separately at other times. Patricia developed “a strong urge to write women’s roles”—plays where the action is driven by female protagonists—and that meant not writing with Andy. Her bent is to write comedies with a political point of view. And since it takes her from six months to two years to write a play she tends to pick topics that she’s passionate about, that, as she confesses, make her angry.

“I tend to pick stubborn, intractable problems like climate change. Nothing that can be solved during the course of two hours. I like comedy because it is my world view, because I feel like we are actually living in a comedy. Theatre is my favorite form of artistic expression—people alive in four dimensions and the audience sharing the space with them. Audiences have the opportunity to witness a concentrated form of human experience that you don’t get in the movie theatre. It’s us weirdos that love theatre.”

And love the theatre she does! And the theatre loves her back. Patricia won the 2015 Theatre Bay Area award—Outstanding World Premiere—for her play Enemies: Foreign and Domestic at Central Works, which has a mission to “…enrich the cultural environment of our community through the collaborative development and production of new plays for the theater.” Her latest play Hearts of Palm had a great run at Central Works just recently.

Patricia is constantly honing her craft, taking workshops at Playwrights Foundation with the likes of Guild members Lauren Gunderson and Liz Duffy Adams, as well as New Conservatory Theatre, and online classes at Playwrights Horizons. She participates in programs at Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco, where she is an avid member, past president, and producer for Repro Rights! Since she quit her day job, she is doing more residencies and retreats.

It is often said that being a playwright is a labor of love. Some playwrights even joke that you should marry rich if you want to keep writing plays. In 2013, Patricia participated in the ATLAS Program for Playwrights at Theatre Bay Area with Dale Albright. The program helps artists build career goals and Patricia was forced to examine her motivation, on an intense level.

“It almost made me quit playwriting. I had to dig deep and ask myself if I would be okay if my work was never going to see the light of day and I would never be able to make a living. It was a real eye opener, but here I am.”

Thankfully for us, Patricia has stuck with it and we get the benefit of her worldview. Currently she is working on a family drama about the death penalty. Patricia is a proud member of Dramatists Guild since 2002.

sallen@dramatistsguild.com

Desiree Rogers in Enemies: Foreign and Domestic

Jan Zvaifler and Maura Halloran in Enemies: Foreign and Domestic

@dramatistsguild @GabCody 

Two longtime Dramatists Guild members here in Pittsburgh have premiere productions of new works. Jeanne Drennan’s play Get out of Dodge at the Venice Theatre in Venice, Florida and Arlene Weiner’s play Findings at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company.

For Ms. Drennan, an award-winning veteran playwright, this first production of a new work is a familiar first step. For Ms. Weiner, an award-winning poet and nonfiction writer, this production is her first step because it’s her first production of a play… ever.

I asked each for her perspective on her experiences. Here are their answers:

Gab Cody:  How is playwriting different from other forms?

Arlene Weiner: It’s different the way magic is different from dancing. I don’t mean that “theater is magic”—it can be—but that a playwright, like a magician, must make her moves count, must direct and misdirect the audience’s attention. Must be as elegant as a dancer but to different purpose.

GC:  How is this play similar to or different from others you’ve written?

AW:  It’s finished! Seriously: My first attempt at a full-length play involves young men, alcohol, and motorcycles. Written for a Globe-Theater-like stage, and largely in rhyme! The women in that play, though interesting to me, could probably be cut out to good effect. In Findings, the women (three of them) are central. I’m less bossy about the staging and it’s less literary. It’s closer to my emotional experience, though not at all autobiographical.

Jeanne Drennan: It’s similar in that the characters generally get into fixes of their own making, backing themselves into corners with little idea of how to get out. And there are no characters I’ll abandon, no villains. Everybody’s human and therefore salvageable. It’s somewhat more personal in that the .38 Smith and Wesson evoked in the play is the very one that sat in my father’s top dresser drawer until his death. And it’s dissimilar in that it’s pretty straightforward. Other recent plays have tended toward the dystopian and fantastical—or they’ve actually been musicals, and not, strictly speaking, plays at all.

GC:  What can a play and a production do that other forms of writing cannot?

AW:  The main thing is presence. Somebody has said that theater is the control of the audience’s breath. The audience experiences it together (unlike a novel); the audience is present with the actors/action in real time (unlike a movie). Failure can happen, or fire. Experience is the key word. In poetry, I often try to create an experience for the reader, not just tell her about an experience; in a play the audience is there (here) real-time, witnessing an event/events.

GC:  How did you develop the script, practically (workshops, readings)?

JD:  I’m really embarrassed to say that apart from my work with a student dramaturge the script had no development. After I’d taken it as far as I could, I asked someone local, with a small production company, to look at it with the idea of developing it since it had good roles for that Artistic Director (AD) and some of the AD’s usual collaborators. But that AD dropped out of sight and I got busy with multiple other projects. Then, I simply sent it out a few times as opportunities arose and heard back often enough that it had been a finalist or made the theatre’s final round that I went ahead and sent it to be considered for the AACT NewPlayFest 2016—probably because their deadline was coming up. The additional development has come from my collaboration with the director for this production.

GC:  What was the process of getting this production?

AW:  Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company has the mission of producing plays by playwrights living in or strongly associated with Pittsburgh/Western Pennsylvania area. (They have staged all of August Wilson’s plays.) They are open to new scripts. They were kind enough to lend me their house for a seated reading last November, and I think their literary manager was present. I’ve previously submitted to them, and this time I was successful.

GC:  How do you choose where to enter your work?

JD:  I try to have specific theatres in mind, ones that have either developed my work in the past, or responded well to it after they’ve read it and asked to see new work. I never send to any theatre without studying their website to make sure my play fits their mission and that in any given season I could imagine that my play could fit in. I’m especially drawn to theatres where a season consists of plays I’ve never heard of since it suggests they’re drawn to new work. I mostly consult online resources.

GC:  What keeps you going? What keeps you submitting the work?

AW:  I’ve been in a couple of small groups where we “bring pages,” and gotten a lot of encouragement from others in those groups. A few months ago Stephen Kaplan (New Jersey Regional Rep for the Dramatists Guild), who spoke at Point Park University in August on the topic of submitting your work, was really inspiring. He said something like, “Define success for yourself. If it’s a Broadway production and a Tony, you may be disappointed. Getting your play in front of a handful of people in your community is success.”

Congratulations to these two DG members on their productions. Jeanne Drennan’s Get Out Of Dodge, a 2016 AACT NewPlayFest winner, premiered November 3, 2016 at the Venice Theatre (https://venicestage.com/portfolio/get-out-of-dodge/) and Arlene Weiner’s Findings will premiere in the 2016-2017 season at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company (http://www.pghplaywrights.org/upcoming).

gcody@dramatistsguild.com

@dramatistsguild @bystephenkaplan

 We ended 2016 with a great member potluck where it was great to meet new faces and catch up with those of you I haven’t seen in a while. I hope we can make this a yearly tradition!

To bring in the New Year, and in the tradition of “Auld Lang Syne,” I wanted to look to three of our longest-running members to learn about their journeys and to have them share a bit of advice. Hopefully you’ll get to meet them at one of our upcoming events.

Elaine Denholtz has the distinction of (at least according to my records) being the longest-standing New Jersey DG member for the past 52 years! In addition to her many plays that have been seen at the O’Neill, Clark Center for Performing Art, and New York Theatre Ensemble, she’s written over 7 books and is the recipient of two grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She’s written since she was a child and “just love[s] the whole process by which you come up with an idea that you think is fantastic and you look at it the next day and it looks terrible, but you just keep going.” Her piece of writing advice is “I think each one has to find his/her own way. You just have to stick to it, stick to it, stick to it is the advice. Stick to it and enjoy it.”

Coming in a close second with 50 years of Guild membership is Ronald J Meyers who’s been writing since his college days at Brooklyn College, then Columbia and NYU, and a Guild member since his professor, the great playwright Maurice Valency, recommended that he joined. Now retired from teaching himself (he taught Scriptwriting, Shakespeare, and more at East Stroudsburg University for more than forty years), he currently writes a monthly Book Review for Boca Pointe Viewpointe and his play Freud and His Ladies is under consideration by the International Jewish Playwriting contest. Some of his favorite writing memories is having legendary producer Cheryl Crawford consider his first play, Archibald Mann’s Fall and speaking with Ellen Stewart at La Mama about his play Virginia Woolf and the Killing of the Angel in the House. His piece of writing advice is to follow your heart in your writing—“and don’t quit your second job yet.”

George Lefferts is 95 years old but even after winning six Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes and having his own column in the NY Observer, he still considers himself a fledgling playwright, experiencing the same problems that a new writer encounters (like finding an agent). He did his first theatre in the army during WWII where he wrote a musical called High Yank. At the University of Michigan he continued his playwriting studies, getting close many times to winning the Avery Hopwood Award—though always coming in second to a schoolmate by the name of Arthur Miller. Then he wrote his first play, The Boat, which was optioned by Gil Cates and was to be directed by Herman Shumlin and star Roy Scheider. However, Mr. Cates got an offer to do his first Hollywood movie and the production was abandoned. This discouraged George about theatre so he immediately “sold out to television” where, while he found a very successful career as a TV writer/producer for many years, theatre was always his true love. Upon his retirement, he became a playwright again. And The Boat, that first play of his, recently had a new reading with Urban Stages, just going to prove that his advice of “just do what you love” is exactly the words we all need to remember to follow.

I loved getting to speak to these three great legacy members of the Guild and look forward to speaking with more of you at our events this year. Here’s to a great year of writing in 2017!

skaplan@dramatistsguild.com

George Lefferts

Ronald J. Meyers

@dramatistsguild @hartplaywright

The very mention of the word ‘potluck’ is likely to present anyone with the visual of a meal or party to which each of the guests contributes a dish. In Kansas City’s Crossroads Art District, one is more likely to think of theatrical tastes delivered by Potluck Productions. Established in 1994, Potluck was formed to create more opportunities for emerging female playwrights to produce their work. Dramatists Guild members Nancy Parks and Lezlie Revelle serve as two of the company’s producers.

One great contribution this production company makes in our region is offering women a venue for their voices, and a process for developing their work. For many years Potluck produced an annual festival open to all female playwrights, helping to develop the best in new scripts written by women. Potluck now hosts a First Friday Play Reading Series, showcasing scripts written by women playwrights residing in Kansas and Missouri. The company also showcases short plays—often chosen from among 40 or more submissions by women playwrights—during the annual Kansas City Fringe Festival. Guild member Catherine Browder has had several plays developed in the Potluck tradition. She appreciates the company’s commitment to meaningful play development. “They have a fairly large ensemble of semi-pro, non-equity actors they enlist. They encourage the playwrights to attend the rehearsals for the readings, and they have often hire professional directors for their staged productions, such as the 2014 Fringe Festival production, which made it a serious and effective show.”

The signature dish of Potluck is their First Friday Play Reading Series, which are performed before an audience. What sets them apart from other production teams is the company’s constant commitment to helping the playwright develop her work through professional readings and staged productions. “Potluck provides opportunities for women writers to submit their work and hear it read by seasoned actors. That is invaluable for any playwright,” said Lezlie Revelle. She continued, “We offer opportunity. Success breeds success. And even if that success isn’t immediate, it breeds the taste for more success, for another opportunity. It feeds the hunger that keeps an artist writing, submitting…the hunger that keeps us going. I believe—and this belief is backed up by conversations I’ve had with women who yearn to pursue their art—what we provide is a place where new women writers are welcomed and encouraged. They are given a chance.” Nancy Parks believes even for an experienced playwright “the opportunity to do a reading is an important tool for polishing a play. You can see what it sounds like and how the audience reacts.”

Many female dramatists stay connected to Potluck because they believe in what the production company does best: providing an ongoing venue for growing creativity. The company has produced a dozen festivals consisting of over one hundred short plays and monologues, and has worked with local and regional directors. “We’re getting a chance to see more writers,” says Parks. And they would love to see more, so every female playwright in this region should consider to submitting their new work. Potluck’s submission guidelines can be found on their website, www.potluckproductionskc.com.

All of us as dramatists seem to be isolated enough, in need of an encouraging voice far too often. Given our chosen craft continues to be a world where the words of men are produced more than women, I can’t help but think the cheers for most female playwrights still seem faint. This is why Potluck Productions is so important to our region. As Catherine Browder states, “I know of no other group in Kansas City who focuses (exclusively) on women playwrights.” These are women writers diligently dedicated to developing the work of other women writers. And they are members of our fabulous Guild!

hwright@dramatistsguild.com

@dramatistsguild @AoiseStratford

Last night (October 23, 2016) marked the second reading in the 20 a cross-the-state collaboration that was founded on the desire to bring playwrights and their work into new communities in their region. This is the third year we have held the series, which invites submissions of previously produced full-length plays from area members and then seeks to have those plays considered buy theatres within driving distance that are beyond the writer’s own back yard and usual base. The goals of the series are to foster a wider sense of community, provide opportunities for forming new collaborations and relationships, and give valuable second exposure to new plays. The first reading for this year’s series saw Ithaca-based member Judith Pratt head to Road Less Traveled Productions in Buffalo last month for a reading of her play Chimera. Last night DG member Ntare Ali Gault and Ericka Gault came from Buffalo to the Kitchen Theatre Company in Ithaca to hear their play Ain’t She Brave. The event was a great success, Guild members and other writers had ample opportunities to connect both before and after the reading, and the reading itself was well done, well attended and well received.

The Ithaca-based Hangar Theatre has appointed a new artistic director, Michael Barakiva, who has been pursuing opportunities to connect with local playwrights and thinking through how The Hangar might forge a stronger community with them. Earlier this month, Mr. Barakiva graciously gave me the opportunity to meet with the theatre’s board and discuss ideas for collaboration and support. One of the things to come out of this very collegial meeting was a discount ticket deal for Guild members to attend shows on their summer main stage, and other ideas are still being discussed.

A similar deal is now also in place with The Kitchen Theatre Company, who will also be producing Guild member Wendy Dann’s Birds of East Africa in the Spring, so if you’re in the area, let’s go see some theatre. I’m hoping to negotiate similar deals with other CNY theatres, so stay tuned for updates, and if you know a theatre you’d particularly like me to approach, get in touch.

Also in Ithaca, The Cherry Arts is continuing its agenda of fostering innovative new work by local writers with workshops and collaborative projects supporting new work by Guild members Saviana Stanescu and myself. The active engagement of these excellent local companies with the region’s writers is great for writers in the Finger Lakes area and beyond.

In Albany, Capital Rep’s annual new play series, “Next Act,” is showcasing new work by several Guild members this year. Offerings include Steve Peterson’s Paris Time, Michael Erickson’s Honor Student, and Joe Breen’s The Hands That Hold Us. These members hail from different parts of the country, and it’s great to see Capital Rep bringing the work of guild members to Central New York as part of a three-day celebration of new play development.

If you are a Guild member in or around Syracuse, stay tuned for announcements about a Rep on The Road Event offering an opportunity to meet and network with other members, have a drink, see a play, and check in with your rep about all things Dramatists Guild. Meanwhile, stay warm, and happy writing.

astratford@dramatistsguild.com

From the reading of Ain't She Brave by Ntare Ali Gault and Ericka Gault

@dramatistsguild

L. Robert (“Lonnie”) Westeen is a playwright, actor and director probably best known locally for his one-man play, Cocaine and Ethel Merman: The New Homo Guide, about being openly gay in a small town. When it premiered at the Minnesota Fringe, one reviewer described it as “…defiantly traditional storytelling about coming out, with a tale strong enough at its center, told so well, that it’s compelling for any audience, gay or straight.” I interviewed Lonnie last year soon after he was selected as the playwright-in-residence at Queensbury Theatre.

William Duell:  What are your plans as the new Playwright-in-Residence at Queensbury Theatre?

L. Robert Westeen:  It’d be hard to tell you all my plans, I’ve been granted this incredible opportunity with few restrictions—sure, the theatre would object to me dropping a cool million on Jelly Babies or mounting a year-long revival of Oh! Calcutta! but, while I do want to focus on creating my own work, I’m also here to give others a chance to learn and grow along with me. For example, in March you and I are hosting a Dramatists Guild Town Hall here and the Dramatists Guild Fund and I are providing a series of Master Classes tailored for the Houston region, and I’m organizing activities I’m calling “the Playwright and the Process.” We’ll bring playwrights, patrons and the community together for talkbacks, readings, special events and meet-andgreets. After March, I focus on getting a new work in development and onto the stage by summer. Come summer as far as I know I’ll be teaching “playwriting crash courses” for ages thirteen and up. My first year is less about me, more about community and other playwrights and seeing their work put up in some form. I think of it, to quote the theatre’s President, J.P. Stevenson, as being “a rising tide that lifts all ships.”

WD:  Why did you create Cocaine and Ethel Merman?

LRW:  I’m in awe of Hal Holbrook, John Leguizamo, Anna Deavere Smith, Spalding Gray. Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight was my first exposure to a major theatrical event. In sixth grade Holbrook gave an in-school performance in Wausau, Wisconsin. I sat in wonder watching him on stage. He hosted a post-performance talkback where he removed his make-up and discussed his process. I’ll never forget while removing his mustache he said, “now I’m going to use some fingernail remover…no, no not fingernail remover, fingernail polish remover,” not sure why that’s stuck with me… Sorry, tangent! I felt my story could be a guide or an example of survival, thus I put pen to paper. I found a story in me that didn’t need an epic set or huge cast. It was cathartic. I took it to the Minnesota Fringe, on a small tour of Wisconsin, and performed it twice in Houston.

WD:  Who were your mentors?

LRW:  I hate to say this…I’ve not had a mentor. I made this hot mess all by myself. I’ve found myself surrounded by so many playwrights in the Houston community who have amazing mentorship stories involving Albee, Lanford Wilson, Mark Medoff, and others. For me, the opportunity never presented itself. (Hint, hint, I’m available to be mentored: an eager, youngish mind available for theatrical manipulation. Anyone? Anyone?)

But talk about influences, my influences have been my playwriting group here in Houston, the people who introduced me to theater. My former High School drama teachers/directors, Jerry Hartwig and Margaret Getzin; Mark Adams, an incredible Houston director, no longer with us, who redirected and helped me fine-tune Cocaine and Ethel Merman.

WD:  Why are you a playwright? What brought you into our fold?

LRW:  When I was fifteen or sixteen, Jerry Hartwig received a call from the YWCA asking if he had a student who could direct their Christmas pageant. He offered me up as the fatted calf, I was much skinnier then. The next day I went there, directed the pageant and pitched a theatre program for underserved youth, and they gave me a paid position and an office. To keep a minimal budget, I wrote most of the plays and curriculum. Due to that work I was nominated for two Golden Rule Awards and the whole thing provoked my hunger to write.

WD:  Jase is one of the kindest, most generous people I know.

LRW:  Jase is really another miracle in my life, my mother being the first and this residency being another. We married October 3, 2015. Along with him came my in-laws, a bunch of loud and proud Puerto Ricans who I adore. He is my rock, the person I can turn to when I’m stumped with life. He’s gone on the road with me, helped load the show in and out of theatres, acted as a house manager. He’s becoming a theatre person slowly but surely. He gets along famously with my mother, Roberta, and loves her just as much as I do. There’s just not enough I can say about him.

To learn more about Lonnie, check out http://www.lrobertwesteen.com/index.html.

wduell@dramatistsguild.com

@dramatistsguild @allysoncurrin

Theatres for Young Audiences Champion New Work

The DC theatres that consistently commission and produce the bulk of the area’s new work are ones that might not be on everyone’s radar: the liveliest are the ones which program for the youth market. Adventure Theatre, Imagination Stage and The Kennedy Center’s Theatre for Young Audiences are all dedicated to creating exciting new work for the stage that challenges and respects its audience. Each continues to provide ample opportunities for playwrights, composers and devisers in a field that is often starved for chances to collaborate.

DG member Michael Bobbitt, Artistic Director of Adventure Theatre in Glen Echo, MD, tends to focus on adaptations that have name recognition. “I spend weeks out of my year looking for book titles that have marquee value. The New York Times, library lists, school curricula, TV shows, comic strips… It can take anywhere from three months to five years to secure the rights to some of these projects. But once the rights are ours, our development process will take from six months to a year.”

Artistic Director and DG member Janet Stanford reports with understandable pride that Imagination Stage has produced two new plays on its main stage every season for the past 25 years, with several exciting new projects in the pipeline; from a new piece about the firsthand experiences of refugee children (Oyeme, by Miriam Gonzalez) to Guild member Psalmayene 24’s hip-hop update of The Freshest Snow Whyte. “Our challenge with the artists we commission is where we find the connection between the project the theatre wants and what the playwright wants to write,” Stanford says. “Our ideas tend to come from within our institution, then we pair up with the artists. Typically the development process is two years because we like to give the writer a development week during the season before the play gets produced.  The development process takes whatever form is most helpful to the playwright.”

“One of my biggest theories about being a producer,” says Kim Peter Kovac, Director of Programming for Young Audiences at The Kennedy Center, “is to find good people and stay out of their way. In my experience, 95% of the time that’s the best policy. So my job is to ask ‘How can I help you do your work?’ I try to be supportive but not micromanage.”

“The goal of my work is to get kids into the theatre, and give them an amazing, memorable experience with the hope that they will become lifelong audience members,” says Bobbitt, whose recent successes include an epic re-telling of Jumanji for the stage by Sandra Eskin and an Asian-infused The Emperor’s Nightingale by Damon Chua. “We want it to be memorable. And entertaining doesn’t mean silly or wacky, but meaningful, with conflict and tension, and with well-dramatized characters solving their own problems. If it’s done well, kids will get it.”

Kovac agrees with what seems to be a common theme amongst these seasoned playmakers: “We always start with story. There is a lot of work in TYA right now that wants to teach lessons, but we try to tell stories and develop characters that audiences can empathize with. Theatre is a greenhouse for empathy. We want to make our audiences discover something they might not know.”

“We look for stories that respect children, that come from the heart of our organization, that reflect important childhood issues,” says Stanford. “Serious intent is important, even when looking at a play that really needs to sell. You need the support of everyone in the organization to get behind the story we are telling.”

As anyone who has written for young audiences will tell you, TYA demands tight, disciplined structure and efficient, streamlined storytelling. And none of these artistic leaders in the field shy away from issue or style-driven work. Kovac touts the Kennedy Center’s recent success with Guild member Julie Jensen’s Mockingbird, about a young person on the autism spectrum, and Stanford is proud of the upcoming Bollywood version of The Prince and the Pauper by Anu Yadev. “We don’t care if you’ve done TYA work before or not, and we definitely don’t want writers with preconceptions about what TYA is supposed to be,” says Kovac. “We want stories the writers care about. You can’t talk down to this audience ever.”

“There’s no room for fluff,” agrees Bobbitt. “You have to have a well-written play or you will lose this audience.”

Such nobility of purpose and respect for children infuses all of the TYA work done in DC, a region already flooded with a high level of quality new work for the stage. But one of the most profound comments about TYA came from Kovac when he said, “There isn’t a deep canon of excellent work for TYA. It is incumbent upon us to make that canon.” And with such powerful commitment, demonstrated in DC for decades now, the health of that canon is vibrant indeed.

acurrin@dramatistsguild.com

@dramatistsguild 

Chicago Presents Banned Together

On September 26, the night of the first presidential debate, Dramatists Guild members in the Chicago Region, theatre professionals, educators, and the next generation of theatre artists from colleges and universities were engaged in another type of public conversation. We gathered to present Banned Together: A Censorship Cabaret, an event designed to raise awareness about censorship in the theatre as part of Banned Books Week.

Sponsored by the Dramatists Guild Legal Defense Fund, and with contextual commentary by DLDF president John Weidman, the cabaret featured songs and scenes from works that have been challenged across the country, including Almost, Maine, Angels in America, Cabaret, Chicago, Fun Home, My Name is Rachel Corrie, Picasso at the Lapine Agile, Rent, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All for You, and Spring Awakening. The Chicago presentation of Banned Together also included a scene from Dramatist Guild member Elaine Romero’s The Fat Free Chicana and the Sno Cap Queen, which was banned, along with the entire curriculum of the Mexican-American Studies program, by the Tucson Unified School District.

Dramatists Guild members Paul Amandes, Russell Coutinho, Ryan Cunningham, Georgette Kelly, J. Sebastian Fabal, and Susan Pak shared emcee duties for the evening, along with the Michigan Regional Rep, Anita Gonzalez. Guild member Diana Lawrence was the musical director, and Guild member Laura Stratford opened the evening by singing “Class” from Chicago. Chicago Region Young Ambassador, Annie Brennen, a student at Northwestern University, performed the monologue from My Name is Rachel Corrie.

Ray Frewen, Associate Professor of Theatre at Roosevelt University, Barbara E. Robertson, Columbia College faculty member and award-winning actress, and Paul Amandes, Associate Chair of the Theatre Department Columbia College, used the event as an opportunity to engage student writers and performers in a larger conversation about censorship and artistic freedom.

Paul Amandes emphasized the importance of including students, the next generation of theatre professionals. “Almost all of the actors from Columbia are also playwrights; they came to playwriting by first being performers. And they genuinely felt the spirit of community last night.”

Familial feelings pervade special events in our close-knit Chicago theatre community, but our presentation of Banned Together featured an actual father-and-son acting duo, Guild member James Sherman and his son, T. Isaac Sherman, who performed a scene from Angels in America. Roosevelt University professor Ray Frewen introduced his students’ presentation from Spring Awakening, and his daughter, Alyssa Frewen, a young Chicago theatre professional, performed “Changing My Major” from Fun Home.

Columbia College student Arthur Kraus performed a scene from Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All for You with his professor Barbara E. Robertson. “Thank you for letting me be a part of such an amazing project! Not only did I have a blast performing, but I felt so honored to be in a room filled with so much talent and passion. It’s nights like yesterday that remind me that the theatre community really is one big family.”

ccoons@dramatistsguild.com

Columbia College student Arthur Kraus and Barbara E. Robertson in a scene from Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All to You

Roosevelt University students Evan Wilhelm, Cody Ellsworth, Kaleb van Rijswijck singing "Totally F*cked" from Spring Awakening

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Looking across the spectrum of productions in Boston this winter and this spring, I came across something different and exciting and timely: a documentary play about the Boston Marathon bombings. And to my delight, a collaborator on this project is none other than Dramatists Guild member, Lisa Rafferty.

Mary Conroy:  You are currently working on two documentary plays, can you tell us more about them?

Lisa Rafferty:  Joey Frangieh and I created Finish Line: A Documentary Play about the 2013 Boston Marathon. We had a sold-out developmental run in Boston last April, prior to the upcoming world premiere on the Shubert Theatre in March 2017. It is a story of recovery, resilience, and determination that focuses on how a community came together to heal and grow stronger, rather than on the act of violence itself. The script is created verbatim from dozens of interviews. Among those interviewed are survivors, runners, doctors, police officers, journalists, clergy, students, and many others. Notable interviewees who contributed their stories include Police Commissioner William Evans, news anchor Maria Stephanos, Life is Good founder John Jacobs, Boston Strong co-author Dave Wedge, 1976 Marathon winner Jack Fultz, and Boston Globe photographer John Tlumacki.

My latest documentary play is SHE DID ALL THAT: Betty Ford, Speaking Out, Saving Lives. This piece focuses on the courageous and outspoken First Lady. She was a trailblazer, following the legacy started by Eleanor Roosevelt and continuing to the leadership of the First Ladies today. The first chapter and first act focuses on her first two years in the White House.

MC:  What brought you to each project?

LR:  Joey and I both have a passion for documentary theatre and knew the best way to tell the story of April 15, 2013 would be through the words of those who were impacted, directly or indirectly. It has been a powerful and profound experience to create a platform for these voices.

The inspiration for Betty came during a visit this summer to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor. While there, I read a disgruntled letter from Maria von Trapp to Betty Ford. This led to a discussion with a staff member, which led to research on the papers there, which opened my eyes to the extraordinary courage and candor of Mrs. Ford, and her impact on the lives of thousands of women. It was something that I did not know about, and very much wanted to share.

MC:  Why the stage as opposed to the big screen?

LR:  There is something pure and raw and alive about theatre. An audience watching theatre becomes a community together, sharing what can be healing, enlightening or provoking in a visceral and unique way. I have not written for the small or large screen, although certainly either of these pieces could be adapted. Calling HBO!

MC:  Have you been met with any challenges because they are documentary plays? If so, what?

LR:  The goal is always to stay true to the source material—whether it’s interviews, oral history, first-person accounts, other source materials. In the cast of Finish Line, we had hundreds of hours of audio from over 85 interviewees. All the stories told to us infused the piece, and influenced the production. Not every story can be shared onstage but we hope the production reflects many points of view, and offers a vision of a community that arose out of the darkness of the day.  

With the Betty Ford piece, I am going back in time, and creating a context and sharing the impact of all that occurred, using only source materials. There is so much material out there on Betty Ford’s pioneering legacy—the challenge is to crystallize it and create dialogue and action. A cast of eight actors portray over fifteen characters, including Betty, President Ford, Morley Safer, Maria von Trapp, White House reporters, and citizens who wrote to the First Lady, both critics and admirers.

MC:  What have been the most fulfilling elements of working on documentary plays?

LR:  Collaboration is so important in my playwriting and creative work. In addition to the work that Joey and I have been doing for two years, there has also been collaboration among actors from various workshops, designers, a dramaturg, and the interviewees themselves who have all valuable contributions to the development.

For the Betty Ford piece, I am working solo for the first time, but looking forward to input and feedback from cast and audience as it develops. What’s particularly fulfilling in this is the focus on a strong woman, who continually spoke out in the face of criticism, resistance and opposition, and stayed true to herself. I’m inspired by her and hope many others will be also.

MC:  When can we see the productions of these documentary plays?

LR:  The world premiere of Finish Line will take place from March 15–26 at the Shubert Theatre in Boston.

There will be a benefit staged reading performance of Betty on February 9 at Company Theatre in Norwell, MA. Hoping for a future performance in Ann Arbor, MI. Stay tuned!

In addition to her documentary theater work of Finish Line and Betty Ford, LISA RAFFERTY has written four comedies in the MOMologues series, published by Samuel French, which have been performed around the US and the world. Her essays have appeared in The Boston Globe, Wicked Local papers, and The New York Times. Lisa is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

mconroy@dramatistsguild.com